Dread

Nick had always assumed that the gods like Zeus were basically just massively upgraded forms of wizards but this was now proven to be massively incorrect. Not only incorrect but a huge underestimation as well. 'I thought I was making good progress to being able to fend off Zeus but how the hell am I supposed to fight something like this!?' Nick panicked mentally as the realization set in that he was very far from even being a threat to Zeus. "Calm yourself , no good will come of panic. You could not have known of this aspect until now so you could not plan around it , now you can." Celebrimbor counseled wisely.-

It should not be forgotten that despite being most well known as a smith Celebrimbor was a warrior and a tactician for long before he even picked up a hammer. A damn good one as well to the point it was the literal second thing that history remembered him for. Nick was well aware of this fact himself which let him calm down greatly after the elf spoke. "The key points in any conflict is information , skill and preparations. If you have enough time to gather these in plenty then no foe can truly defeat you without exceeding you in the same." the elf lord said seriously.-

'What plan can I even make in the face of this though? The most dangerous thing I can create is rendered moot in the face of this power.' Nick asked heavily demoralized. "While it is true that you can not make adequate preparations to counter your foe at this point that is no reason to believe you can not in the future. Need I remind you that your growth in power has been rapid and strong." Celebrimbor spoke firmly.-

That knowledge helped Nick to fully calm himself and focus on trying to gather information about divinity from the crystal. It was a slow process as all he he study was the tiny amounts of mana that was released from the crystal before they turned into metal. Though from what Nick did learn over the next few days before he had no choice but to return to Hogwarts even calling it mana was wrong. The basic structure of the energy was the same but it was fundamentally different from the stuff Nick had come to accept as a part of his everyday life.-

It was hard to describe for Nick as while it confirmed a few of his theories about what the higher tiers of power were like it left him with many more questions than answered. For example the mana was qualitatively superior than anything Nick could have even considered possible like it had been broken down into it's purest form before strengthened many fold to almost be an entirely different type of energy. Even stranger was that the energy seemed to have innate properties to itself that didn't seem unnatural at all but like they were meant to be there. -

This was what caused the energy to turn into metal from what Nick could tell but besides a theory that this was something innate to divinity Nick had no clue what he was even looking at. This left him confused and frustrated when he finally returned to Hogwarts the day before the students were due to come back. "Bloody hell mate , where have you been this whole time? I looked all over the castle but couldn't find you at all." Ron questioned curiously after Nick went to dinner. "Hmm? Iceland , had a bit of an errand to take care of there is all." Nick said casually.-

Ron and the rest of the people at the table listening to the conversation all had dumbfounded looks. "Buddy , pal , greatest ring maker ever , HOW in Merlin's name did you even get to Iceland and back in less than a week?" Fred asked with overflowing curiosity. The rest of the people listening to the conversation were also dying to learn this as well. "It wasn't even that hard really , only took about an hour to get there by flight for me." Nick said with a shrug. -

"You had to be going faster than sound to get there in less than an hour!" Le Jordan exclaimed in shock. Contrary to popular opinion Gryffindor students weren't actually stupid and Lee Jordan was especially outstanding in terms of mental acumen and had easily figured out the distance between here and Iceland and by extension how fast you would need to go to get there in under an hour. Nick wasn't even surprised about it as the boy had to be fast thinking to accurately keep up with a quidditch and Blitzball game given the amount of things going on at once during one.